The Long Night of Centauri Prime (25 page)

"Because you frightened me, Majesty."

He took her by the elbow and turned her to face him.

"I was angry with you. I shouted at you. That was the extent of what you faced ... and that frightened you? My child, if you accomplish only one thing in the time that you spend with me, it has to be to raise your tolerance level in terms of what does and does not frighten you. There are terrifying things in this galaxy, Senna. Things so monstrous, so evil, so dark, that it takes tremendous courage simply to look them in the eye ... eyes," he quickly amended, although she wasn't sure why. "If you are to make your way in life, you must not be so easily daunted by something as relatively trivial as an old man shouting at you."

"You are not old, Majesty."

"Aging, then, if that preserves your delicate concerns. An aging man shouting at you." He paused and then said, looking as if a great deal hinged on her answer, "How far ... did you get in the narrative? Where did you start, for that matter?"

"At the beginning and end of your dinner and time with President Sheridan and Delenn."

"And no farther?" She shook her head, looking so earnest that no reasonable person could possibly doubt her.

"No, Majesty. No farther. Why? Is there something there I should not read?"

"You should not read any of it," he told her flatly, but it seemed to her as if his body was sagging in visible relief. "It is ... first draft, if nothing else. It is not ready to be read by someone else. What I write in those pages are my initial thoughts, but as I prepare the history for publication, I will craft it into something that is more ... appropriate to an emperor, and less politically charged, if you understand my meaning."

"I ... I think so, Majesty. It's just that..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No," he said firmly. "You are not to do that with me, Senna. Not ever. You do not start a thought out loud, and then seek to pluck it back as if it was never released. Finish the thought."

"I ... just did not want to hurt your feelings, Emperor."

Londo made a dismissive noise.

"My feelings, Senna, are beyond your ability to hurt, I assure you. So ..." And he waited for her to continue.

"Well, it is just that ... when you grabbed the book from me, you not only seemed angry ... but you were also ... well ... afraid. At least, that was how it looked to me. Afraid that I had read something that I should not have read."

"It was simply the timing," he said easily. "I had been having – shall we say `unpleasant' – dreams, and then I awoke, confused and disoriented, and found you there. Was there fear in my eyes? Perhaps. All manner of notions were tumbling around in my head. But you should not read too much into what you saw at that moment." The way he said it and explained it, it almost all sounded reasonable.

She wanted to believe it. She wanted to be able to return to the palace because, truth to tell, she had become comfortable there. She had come to think of it as her home. Yes, there were people there she found distasteful, even somewhat frightful. But that would certainly be the case wherever she resided, wouldn't it? And she also felt that Londo ... needed her somehow. Not on any sort of romantic level, no. She didn't think for a moment that that was entering into the picture, and she was quite certain that he would never even try to take advantage of her in that way, because of her youth and out of respect to her late father. She was certain Londo would think such a thing utterly inappropriate.

"Was there anything else in there," Londo said slowly, "that caused you any confusion or concern? Now is the time to speak of these things, Senna."

"Well," she admitted, "the things that you wrote in that book ... they made it sound as if you have some great secret that you keep hidden within you. There was such curious phrasing, and it seemed as if you felt you were being watched all the time."

He nodded.

"A fair comment. And understandable, since you did not read earlier parts of the narrative. The secrets are–"

He was cut off as a man bumped into them at that moment. He wore grey, enveloping robes with a hood drawn up, and he seemed quite intent on hurrying on his way. His hurried movement actually brought him into contact with Londo for a moment. The guards immediately stepped forward, alert, and Senna didn't blame them, since such an incident could easily cover a knife thrust. But the hooded man moved right on past, and Londo seemed barely to have noticed him. For one moment, though, the man glanced in Senna's direction and smiled. She couldn't help but notice that he was quite handsome, and then he vanished into the crowd ... a crowd that was slowly becoming more dense as word of the emperor's presence began to spread throughout Ghehana. The guards relaxed their defensive posture only slightly, and still kept a wary eye on the crowd.

"The secrets," continued Londo, "involve that which you must already know. Sooner or later, it is the destiny of the Centauri Republic to try and reclaim its place in the power structure of the galaxy. When, and if, I encounter Sheridan again, we will be enemies. There was a time... I have not felt like that since..." His voice had trailed off.

"Since when, Majesty?"

"I had coordinated a military assault against the Narn," Londo told her. "The details are not important; suffice to say that it was the first strike by the Centauri Republic in our endeavor to obliterate the Narn. When the assault was already in progress, before word of it had become public ... the Narn ambassador to Babylon 5, a fellow known as G'Kar, bought me a drink, shook my hand in friendship, and spoke of a bright future. He did not know – though I did – what was about to happen. It was not a pleasant feeling for me. It still is not. Sometimes, Senna, you look upon an enemy and wonder what it would have been like in another life, if you and he were friends. Well, I genuinely was friends with them. I look back upon those days as if I am watching someone else's life, rather than my own. I did not realize ... how very fortunate I was at the time. All I felt was the discontent. Discontent that rose within me until it pushed out every other attribute I had. In those days, when I spoke in anger of what Centauri Prime had once been, I breathed fire. Here is the interesting thing, Senna: when you breathe fire, you are usually left with ashes in your mouth."

"But then ... then why go down that same path again? If it brought you nothing but unhappiness..."

"Because the people need it, Senna. The people need something to believe in. That might not have been the case even as recently as a generation ago, when the memories of what it was like to be feared throughout the galaxy had grown faded and dim. But the current generation of Centauri know what it was like to be world beaters. They have tasted blood, Senna. They have tasted meat. They cannot be expected to go back to grazing on plants. Besides ... this time it will be different."

"How? How will it be different?"

"Because," he said with conviction, "those who were running Centauri Prime were power mad or insane or both. They lost sight of what was truly the important thing: the people. The people must always come first, Senna. Always, without exception, yes?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"I will not ever forget that. My goal is simply to obtain for the Centauri people the respect that they so richly deserve. But we will not mindlessly destroy, we will not endeavor to lay waste to all that we encounter. Before, we overreached ourselves, became greedy and overconfident, and we paid a price for that ... a terrible price," he said, glancing at a fallen building. "But having paid that price, having learned from our mistakes, we will proceed down a path that will bring glory to the Centauri Republic without taking us to ruination."

"That ... does not sound all that unreasonable," Senna said slowly. "You ... might have put it that way to President Sheridan..."

"No," was the firm reply. "He cannot be trusted, Senna. For the time being, we cannot afford to trust any except each other. We must proceed with caution. Who knows, after all, how Sheridan might misinterpret or inaccurately repeat anything that I say to him. So I speak of friendship and stick with generalities. That is the way such encounters must be handled, at least for now. Do you understand?"

"I ... think I do, yes. I just wish that you didn't have to be, well ... so lonely."

"Lonely?" A smile played on his lips. "Is that how I come across to you?"

"Yes. In the journal, and even to person sometimes, yes. Very lonely."

"Believe me, Senna ... there are many times I feel as if I am never alone."

"I know exactly what you're talking about."

"You do?" He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. " `Exactly' how?"

"The guards all the time. and Durla, and Lione, and Kuto, and all the others ... they hover around you..."

"You are a very perceptive girl," he said, letting out what seemed to Senna to be another sigh of relief. "But that's not the same as having companionship. It's just not the same at all."

"I suppose you are right."

"I am ... at least I could be ... company for you, Majesty. As ... you see fit, that is."

"Senna ... what you can do for me is return to the palace and live safely and happily there. To be honest, that is all that I require of you. Will you do this for me?"

"If... it will make you happy, Majesty. Sometimes I think few enough things do. So if my presence would help in that regard ..."

"It would," Londo said confidently.

"Very well. Although I just want you to know ... I could have survived out here, on my own, if it was necessary. I just want us both to know that."

"I understand fully," Londo said. "I appreciate you clarifying that for me."

One of the guards stepped in close and said with some urgency, "Majesty, I really think it is time for us to go."

Senna looked around and saw that it was becoming more and more crowded with each passing moment. People seemed to be assembling from everywhere. Within a short time it would become impossible to move. Londo surveyed the situation a moment, and then said softly to the guard, "Step back, please." The guard did so, a puzzled and concerned look on his face, and then Londo turned to face the crowd. He said nothing, absolutely nothing. Instead he stretched his arms out in front of himself, held them level for a moment ... and then spread them wide, making his desires known simply by a gesture. To Senna's utter astonishment, the crowd parted for him, creating a clear avenue down which he could proceed. That was precisely what he then did, walking down the avenue, nodding to people, and as he did he worked the lines that were on either side of him. He would nod to this person, touch another's hand, speak a few words of encouragement to yet another. It was one of the most amazing things Senna had ever seen. Just like that, with no apparent effort, Londo had created an impromptu parade, with himself, Senna, and the guards as the entirety of the procession. And as they moved through Ghehana, someone called out Londo's name.

"Mollari."

And then someone else followed suit, and another ... entirety of the and still another, until they were chanting it over and over.

"Mollari. Mollari. Mollari..."

Londo basked in their adulation, smiling and nodding, and Senna realized that there had been a great deal of truth to what Londo had said. The people needed something to believe in, something to elevate them above themselves. And for the time being, that "something" was going to be Londo Mollari himself. Londo the Emperor, Londo the Rebuilder, Londo the Lover of the People, who was going to bring prosperity to Centauri Prime and rebuild the Republic into something that every Centauri could be proud of. But he still seemed lonely. And that was something that Senna decided she was going to do something about.

The Centauri worker wished that he were anywhere else but here. He had wandered off from the main dig site, feeling tired and thirsty and fairly fed up with the company of his fellows. All of them seemed hideously happy to have some kind of employment, however marginal, and they were laboring under some sort of bizarre delusion that somehow the needs and interests of the great Centauri Republic were going to be served by working at a useless archaeological dig on some damned backwater planet, using antiquated tools and having no clear idea of what it was that they were actually looking for.

"Idiots," he said, not for the first time. It was at that point that he decided he had had it. He took his dirt cruncher aimed it just below his feet, and fired it straight down. By all rights, by all instructions, there shouldn't be anything there in particular. He was determined to take out his ire by burning the cruncher out completely, operating it at high speed for longer than it was meant to operate.

The cruncher pounded about ten feet straight down, and then something came back up. The worker never really had the opportunity to figure out what it might be. All he knew was that one moment he was happily pushing his cruncher to the maximum, and the next some sort of black energy was enveloping him and he heard a scream, which he thought was his own except he realized it was inside his head, and not quite like anything he had ever heard before. Then he heard nothing else, ever again, as his body was blasted apart in a shower of gelatinous body parts that spattered over a radius of about fifty feet.

Since he was spread so wide and far, no one who subsequently stumbled upon any part of his remains truly understood what it was they were looking at. When he didn't show up for sign-out that evening, he was marked down as absent without leave, and his pay was docked accordingly. Meantime, eighty feet below, something went back to standby mode, and waited for a less abusive summons.

1
7.

Vir tossed about in his bed as the giant sucker-woman approached him. There was a look of pure evil in her eyes, and her arms were outstretched, and she was waggling her fingers, and at the ends of those fingers – Great Maker protect him – there were the suckers. Each one smacking its "lips" together, hungering for him, ready to attach themselves to him and try to suck the life clean out of him.